By Deborah Winslow Nutter

First, imagine a century that is as bad as we fear: a century of Herculean challenges, a century of global terrorism and global warming; massive pollution; shrinking space and resources; mega-cities unable to meet the most elemental human needs; the threat of famine, and pandemics of AIDS, influenza, tuberculosis; the spread of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons; an increase in the number of failed states—all accompanied by changes in the structure of international power, changes that in the past have led to large scale conflict between challenger and challenged, and yet more rapid and dramatic than the world has previously seem.

And now let us imagine an India that gets it right, that brings its unique experiences to its understanding and its actions in the world arena; that turns its colonial experience into knowledge and understanding and hence a positive force for itself and the world; that harnesses its democracy and entrepreneurial spirit to solve its problems of poverty and its multi-religious and ethnic challenges; that utilizes its unique geographic position as a subcontinent with an extensive coastline linked by water to most parts of the world; that by finding peaceful, fair, and diplomatic solutions to its own seemingly intractable regional problems can provide a model for other countries engaged in similar struggles; that is able to build on the philosophies of non-violence and non-alignment to promote solutions to the problems of this century.

Imagine an India that produces leaders who understand the complicated and multifaceted dynamics of international affairs—who understand international politics, conflict, and negotiation; international economics, trade, and finance; international law and organization; and the pressures and demands of security, the environment and humanitarian needs. Imagine that these leaders not only can understand the international world, but are able to meld international policy with domestic policy, creating a broad domestic consensus in support of a responsible foreign policy. And further imagine leaders who understand that foreign policy must serve the diverse human needs of the country and that in this century, on this interconnected and troubled planet, the foreign policy of a great nation must also serve the human needs of the world as a whole.

Imagine an India that is able to do better than the great powers of the past in avoiding the hubris and arrogance that seems to have invariably accompanied the possession of international power, that understands what it means to be powerless and at the mercy of more powerful nations and thus treads carefully in its relations with others. Imagine an India that can blend its tradition of soft power with hard power, its idealism with realism, an India that can bring together the principles of Gandhi with the realism of Kautilya. Imagine an India that can understand that international politics is in many respects messy, unpredictable, and chaotic, and that the hope of the world may not be in grand schemes, that instead success takes not only vision and clear purpose but, perhaps more importantly, constant and focused attention, reappraisal, and revision.

Imagine an India that takes care of its own internal problems first, that as it starts its own rise to power heeds the wisdom of the American diplomat George Kennan, who in his “long telegram” home from Moscow in 1946 and in his seminal article of the same year in Foreign Affairs journal, gave the United States sound advice as it entered upon a global role. His advice was simple: that a key component of success would be the tending to and further developing of its own vibrant and successful society, ensuring that it was one that others would emulate and would be eager to follow. Kennan might very well give the same advice to India today. It contains within itself most if not all the problems that face the world. If India can solve its problems, then its vibrant society and democracy can serve as a model in this century, all the stronger for being within reach of other nations.

Imagine an India that in its foreign policy holds fast to its democratic roots but also, by building on its traditions and experiences of non-alignment and its geographic position, can be a bridge, a balancer, and an interpreter between the developing and the developed world; and between the West and the Middle East overall and the Gulf in particular; and most critically between the United States and China.

An India that nourishes its commonality with the United States—based on shared political institutions and values, a common language, and a seafaring and outward-looking orientation, and yet also maintains strong and positive relations with China based on historical connections, a common experience of imperialism and as developing nations—and can help to keep the relations among the great powers flexible, open and peaceful.

And now imagine an India that can do all this and that brings leaders together in revised or new international institutions. India can play an important role in reshaping the current international regime, created after World War II yet still in place after several subsequent shifts in world power. Our new institutions must better reflect and serve a world in which power has moved out across the globe, beyond Europe, beyond the United States, to include countries and regions that for the past five hundred years found themselves far from and unprotected by the locus of power.

India is coming of age as a great power at what is arguably the critical period in history. It will be a complicated century, one with unprecedented dangers, with humans and their creation the nation-state capable of horrors equivalent to those of 1857, 1914-1918, and 1939-45, this time possibly on a global scale. Imagine an India that works with others to ensure that this does not happen, that works to create a manageable and peaceful world. Imagine this India, a country that many predicted could not survive as an entity and certainly not as a democracy, now playing a key role in world affairs—of great benefit to itself and to others.

(Deborah Winslow Nutter is Senior Associate Dean and Professor of Practice at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University)